Reconstructing the Environmental Context of Human Origins in Eastern Africa Through Scientific Drilling

Author:

Cohen Andrew S.1,Campisano Christopher J.2,Arrowsmith J. Ramón3,Asrat Asfawossen45,Beck Catherine C.6,Behrensmeyer Anna K.7,Deino Alan L.8,Feibel Craig S.9,Foerster Verena10,Kingston John D.11,Lamb Henry F.1213,Lowenstein Tim K.14,Lupien Rachel L.15,Muiruri Veronica16,Olago Daniel O.17,Owen R. Bernhart18,Potts Richard19,Russell James M.20,Schaebitz Frank10,Stone Jeffery R.21,Trauth Martin H.22,Yost Chad L.21

Affiliation:

1. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA;

2. Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

3. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

4. Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana

5. School of Earth Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

6. Geosciences Department, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, USA

7. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

8. Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, California, USA

9. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA

10. Institute of Geography Education, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

11. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

12. Department of Geography and Earth Science, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom

13. Botany Department, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

14. Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York, USA

15. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Pallisades, New York, USA

16. National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

17. Department of Geology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

18. Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

19. Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

20. Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

21. Department of Earth and Environmental Systems, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA

22. Department of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Abstract

Paleoanthropologists have long speculated about the role of environmental change in shaping human evolution in Africa. In recent years, drill cores of late Neogene lacustrine sedimentary rocks have yielded valuable high-resolution records of climatic and ecosystem change. Eastern African Rift sediments (primarily lake beds) provide an extraordinary range of data in close proximity to important fossil hominin and archaeological sites, allowing critical study of hypotheses that connect environmental history and hominin evolution. We review recent drill-core studies spanning the Plio–Pleistocene boundary (an interval of hominin diversification, including the earliest members of our genus Homo and the oldest stone tools), and the Mid–Upper Pleistocene (spanning the origin of Homo sapiens in Africa and our early technological and dispersal history). Proposed drilling of Africa's oldest lakes promises to extend such records back to the late Miocene. ▪ High-resolution paleoenvironmental records are critical for understanding external drivers of human evolution. ▪ African lake basin drill cores play a critical role in enhancing hominin paleoenvironmental records given their continuity and proximity to key paleoanthropological sites. ▪ The oldest African lakes have the potential to reveal a comprehensive paleoenvironmental context for the entire late Neogene history of hominin evolution.

Publisher

Annual Reviews

Subject

Space and Planetary Science,Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous),Astronomy and Astrophysics

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